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Packing Perks

by Mary Stella on December 21, 2012

Oh, what a busy, stressful week. Oh, how happy I am that I’m finished with work and headed for a week’s vacation plus holiday fun spending time with family and friends. I’m also happy to have a month’s break from school and a few weeks to decide whether I’m signing up again for the next course or whether I’m going to give myself a longer break and pick up the program again later.

Traveling can be exhausting and tomorrow will be a long day. That said, I am gifted with the ability to nap anywhere. I will not be the least surprised if I am asleep again before the plane lifts off from the runway. I fly an airline that has the most ridiculous baggage fees and policies. They could give Scrooge lessons in penny-pinching and squeezing dollars out of their customers. I think they were the first to institute a charge for checking a bag. That drove more people to cram everything into smaller carryon luggage which slowed the boarding and departure process. So the airline started charging people if they brought a carryon that had to go in the overhead bins.

Last year, in a move to grab even more money from their customers, they dropped the weight limit on the checked bag from 50 pounds to 40 pounds. Go over 40 pounds and they charge another $25. This caused a huge challenge for me, particularly on my annual trips to the Northeast for Christmas. Imagine trying to pack enough warm clothes for a week. Jeans, sweaters, socks. Shoes that aren’t flip flops. You get the idea. Now imagine that you’re super obese which means that each of those garments is practically big enough for two people. So, I needed a larger suitcase, which weighed more empty, to fit my larger, heavier clothes. 40 pounds? Yeah right.

When I began to gather up my clothes for this trip, I brought out the largest suitcase at first. Then I stopped and wondered if there was any way that I could fit what I needed in the smaller piece of luggage. I got in a couple of pairs of jeans, a pair of black pants, two pairs of shoes, sleepwear, bras and panties, a pair of sweatpants and even a pair of workout shorts, a couple of t-shirts and some sweat socks. Neatly folded and packed, everything fit! I was cautiously excited. I added my cosmetic case, zipped up the case, and then weighed it on my home scale. 42 pounds!

At first I despaired, but then I remembered that I would remove one of the pairs of jeans, a sweater, and a pair of the shoes to wear tomorrow on the actual flight! I’m pretty sure that will drop the weight below the 40 pound limit. (For those wondering what will happen to the clothes I was wearing today, since I won’t need shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, I can fold them up and leave them in the car tomorrow.)

I’m really looking forward to the trip. I’ll be staying with family for a few days and have even scoped out Zumba classes in the area so I can keep up with my exercise. Thinking ahead to the luggage challenge, when I shipped the box of gifts up the other week, I stuck in my spare pair of cross-trainer sneakers so I’d have them for Zumba. They’ll go back in the box at the end of the week when I ship home the gifts I receive.

I have a lot to celebrate this holiday season. I’m going to do it without overeating and focus on all of the perks of my new life.

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2 responses to “Packing Perks”

They don’t make it easy for us to travel anymore, do they? I was telling my daughter the other night that I used to come back to the US from Australia with huge mounds of Aussie cheese, jars of vegemite, bottles of wine from local vineyards, and a gazillion other things. And I’d carry it all on board. Now you can’t. But it does make travel safer so I don’t complain. : )

I managed to fit (and wear) enough clothing for 9 days away. Except for exercise clothes because I just do simple floor exercises and if I find the space and time I can do them in my jammies. But I am willing to just go for walks (when weather allows) and shiver off the calories (it’s cold out and no one keeps their home quite as warm as I would like, because they are more inured to the cold than I am).

I am so glad you can now fit your clothing into a smaller bag and save money and space. Excellent NSV!